Day Off - Copenhagen

Met with Hamish Hamilton, the director of the live shoot in Boston, Ned O'Hanlon (the producer of same) and Bono (singer with U2) this morning to have a look at the first rough cut. It has turned out really well. Like the show itself, the video of the gig is less "showbiz" than the PopMart or ZooTV videos, and much more about the performance. It feels very 'present' & has a good sense of 'being there', which is often a tough thing to capture for TV.

Spent much of the rest of the day in the hotel catching up on e.mail and other general admin maintenance & advancing the rest of the European leg. We are staying in a rather grand old hotel on the main square in Copenhagen. I have stayed here before several times and one of my favourite things is that in the lobby they have three large polished oak display boards, covered in little brass plaques engraved with the names of well known persons who have slept under this roof. I imagine my plaque is still at the engravers, but all the same felt quite honoured to have shared accommodations with such luminaries. The first board is mainly actors and Hollywood stars, the centre board displays political and royal dignitaries including Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Winston Churchill, Grace Kelly, and Karen Blixen (the "Out of Africa" babe who was, apparently, Danish) and the final board houses pop stars and entertainers including Madonna, Cher, R.E.M., Bryan Adams, Savage Garden & (hey!) U2. Its odd to look at all these names. Its hard to imagine that some of these people really exist (or existed) in the same way that you or I exist. Hard to imagine then getting into the elevator and pushing the button, trying to remember their room number, then wondering if that was the number from the previous hotel. I wonder how many of them could figure out the air conditioning, or used the pool, or had a room key that wouldn't work. My favourite part of all, though, is that John Cleese is included, but they've put him in the royalty and politicians section...